‘Now my client is in the tour business,’ said William, raising his eyebrows in mock horror. ‘I think I’d better relieve you of my female relations before you end up running a home for wayward pensioners. If I can persuade them to leave, that is.’

There was a lot of laughter, friendly insults and goodwill involved in loading Gilly’s guests into the car while she held sticks and handbags and cheered from the sidelines. But at last they were in, buckled up and away. Gilly waved them off and went back inside.

‘Hello, you,’ said Leo, who was waiting in the hall. He had come in the back entrance, avoiding the farewells at the front. He kissed Gilly’s cheek.

Gilly found herself beaming. She was delighted to see him and for some reason pleased he hadn’t clashed with William’s old ladies. ‘Come and let me make you a cup of coffee. You can drink it while I clear up breakfast.’

‘While you’re obviously brilliant with dotty old women, I don’t think you should have to run around after them like you do.’

Gilly paused. While William’s female relations were eccentric she wouldn’t have described them as dotty. They were very sharp and on the ball and even if they weren’t, she’d have enjoyed caring for them.

‘I like it. I even liked getting up at six so I could send them home with packets of home-made shortbread. There’s some left,’ she added.

She insisted on getting the dishwasher filled before she’d go with Leo to the conservatory to drink the coffee she had made. She didn’t really want more coffee but she did want to spend time with Leo.

‘I think it’s time you retired,’ he said as she handed him coffee and a plate of biscuits.

‘Why?’ said Gilly, smiling at his joke. ‘What would I do with myself if I didn’t have my guests? I’d only get up to mischief.’

‘You could get up to mischief with me,’ he said. ‘I want to take you to Vienna.’

‘Vienna!’ said Gilly.

‘I think Paris and Venice are rather overdone, don’t you? I don’t want to take you to a romantic cliché.’

Gilly was taken aback. The thought of being taken to Bognor Regis by Leo would have seemed romantic. ‘It sounds wonderful.’

It did. Already she was imagining a gorgeous little boutique hotel, going to amazing world-class restaurants, chauffeured limousines. The number of bedrooms involved was for contemplation in private. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about sleeping with Leo, but her imagination had never got her from being fully clothed to being naked in his arms. She just didn’t see how it could happen, at her age.

‘But we can’t go if you’re still running a B & B.’

‘I do go on holiday …’ she protested.

‘But presumably it takes planning?’